Book Expo America 2014 has brought a wave of foreign authors, either in the original language or in translation, and among them a few Italians. Italian American authors, instead, were present in large numbers. At the Rizzoli booth, large, luxurious and full of beautiful books but void as usual of any promotions (other than their catalogs) and samples for librarians and press, the visitors walked through slightly puzzled, attempting to figure out whether this publisher was there to impress or really do some work; like I said, beautiful but disappointing.

A surprise the presence of author and publisher Adolph Caso who, among the books of his Branden Publishing Company products, displayed many Italian books in translation and, gem of it all, the only translation of Pirandello’s Tales of Madness. Kudos for his work and his attempt to keep alive the name of our Italian authors in the USA.

The official Italian booth, run by the Italian Trade Agency ICE, had many titles and publishers, as always interesting, but also void of any promotional materials from the individual companies. Thank God the Italian Trade Agency had beautiful brochures and free paper bags at the entrance, bringing some attention to the area. A signing by known author Marco Malvaldi, present with his book Game for Five, turned out to be a great choice, bringing a lot of visitors, and the author Cosimo Scarpello, with his tome Stressbook brought attention to the booth by describing the content of his book to all visitors. You may see and hear both of these authors and Adolph Caso speaking about their work at the following link: